Group 42

Sunday February 22nd I had the pleasure of brunching with a group of Freebase enthusiasts. What's Freebase? Here's an explanation from the Freebase website page:

Freebase is an open database of the world’s information. "Open" means it's built by the community, for the community — anyone can contribute information, create collections of information to share with others, or build applications that use our API. It also means that the database is freely, openly licensed.

The utility of having a large body of knowledge available through an API is cool, but the potential for innovation through this open approach is breathtaking. There were some intriguing ideas discussed at the table and some funny stories around schemas people have created.

For those of you hitting DrupalCon, Boris Mann is apparently talking about Freebase, or at least mentioning it, in his Drupalcon session, Practical Semantic Web and Why You Should Care (or so Kirrily thought). It certainly seems like a good fit with some of the initiatives happening in the Drupal community.

If you're curious for a taste of what happened at the meetup check out my video piece (below), and for added authenticity pour a glass of your favourite beverage. You'll hear about some things people are doing with Freebase, the Freebase Community Coordinator, Kirrily Robert, answers some questions, and enthusiasts Jim Pick and Scott Blomquist describe their projects.

Greater Vancouver now boasts 2 Drupal groups!

Thanks to the efforts of Katy at SeascapeWebDesign.com there's a Surrey Drupal Users Group. Greater Vancouver encompasses 2900 square kilometers (1100 square miles) and more than 21 jurisdictions, with the namesake, City of Vancouver, being the largest and on the western edge. It's not only awesome seeing a second option for people who can't get to downtown Vancouver, but seeing interest in Drupal grow to supporting 2 groups.

I was at the inaugural meeting but forgot my camera. Fortunately Ryan Demsey Dempsey had his cell camera and our server obliged us with a group shot:

Surrey Drupal User Group meetings are currently being posted on G.D.O. Vancouver, along with the Vancouver meetings. Next meeting is July 10, details here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/12795.

On the eve of DrupalCon – Boston, a Drupal Camp in Vancouver finally became a reality. I'm very excited!

We Vancouver Drupalites had elevated talk of a Vancouver Drupal Camp to that of discussing the weather (Canadians talk about the weather a lot, eh). Nice day, wouldn't a Drupal Camp be a good idea. It's raining, something indoors like a Drupal Camp would be nice. Smells like cannabis, oh, wait, wrong kind of cloudy day. Anyway.

Dave O started turning the talk a bit more serious a bunch of months ago and even took notes. We were on the verge, all it took was: Vancouver DrupalCamp this summer?. Ariane has secured her place in history as Vancouver Drupal Camp's catalyst. Or maybe Godmother.

The post resulted in a meeting last night and the talk turned into action: Drupal Camp Vancouver the first week of May. We have everything left to do, but we've started.

Way more to come. If you're interested in helping out please join the discussions at http://groups.drupal.org/vancouver.

Shuttle photo by p_c_w

In the "nice segue from global to local" department, saw this Web 2.0 Map on Richard's Just a Gwai Lo blog and Darren Barefoot's blog.

Darren gives a full background in this post: Vancouver’s Web 2.0 Companies on a Translink Map.